OTC Conferences Offers Support, Information to Campus Officials

Last week, Ozarks Technical Community College hosted the 6th annual Making Your Campus Tobacco-Free Workshop. The event was sponsored by the The Center of Excellence for Tobacco-Free Campus Policy.

This year's conference offered detailed presentations on how to make college campuses smoke-free and tobacco-free, lessons learned and more. This week, I will share a few tips, tricks and stories from the presentations.

At Ivy Tech Community College, the campus is smoke-free. It hasn't been an easy journey for the school to rid the grounds of smoking and butt litter, but Vice Chancellor John Laws has definitely learned from the experience.

The largest post-secondary institution in Indiana started talking about a smoke-free campus four years ago at the urging of Laws. It wasn't until the college president understood the importance of keeping the campus free of harmful cigarette smoke that Ivy officials acted.

It was a little bumpy when the policy first went into effect in May 2008. The campus printed pretty signage to announce it was a tobacco-free campus. However, the lettering was buried in a pretty design, so the signs weren't as effective as those printed later with the new rule in prominent text.

Another issue was the fact that the college's top officers refused to get involved in the smoke-free debate. That left it up to Laws to police the policy - a highly unpopular position to have.

Third, officials had wanted everyone to voluntarily follow the policy. That wasn't working. The college president did not want to issue tickets or fines to students, forcing them to "buy the right to smoke." A committee devised a plan that the president approved - and that worked with students.

Any Ivy student who is a repeat violator of the policy has a hold put on their permanent record. That hold prevents them from getting copies of transcripts, registering for new classes and more. Only when they meet with the vice chancellor of student affairs about why they break the rules will the hold be lifted.

Laws says he appreciates the support he does receive from campus officials, but notes that it would be so much easier to implement a plan if the community college's top leaders would take an active role in enforcement. He added that the college needs a stronger Web site to talk about the plan.

Lessons learned: The top official at any campus needs to be heavily involved in any smoke-free effort. Their involvement adds weight to the rules and shows they are not afraid to tackle a tough issue like this. Finding smart ways to convince students to follow voluntary policies is key to success.